


At Seventeen I Started To Starve Myself

by LovesLaboursFound



Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst without a happy ending, Body Horror, Character Study, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nightmare!Oz, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Self-Hatred, eldritch horror, oh boy get ready
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovesLaboursFound/pseuds/LovesLaboursFound
Summary: Oz hasn't been seen in days.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	1. Phobophobia

**Author's Note:**

> MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING FOR: Self-starvation, Suicide, Child neglect, Abuse, Death, and Self-hating thoughts. 
> 
> I do not condone or endorse any of these topics, this is a character study.

Phobophobia, _noun._ An irrational fear of fear itself.

* * *

**Vicky: "hey, have any of you guys seen oz these past few days?"**

Across the grounds of Spooky High School, approximately 10 phones gained notifications simultaneously. Some phones simply vibrated, while others got the notification accompanied with the sound of an anime girl being unable to eat a single bite of food correctly. The text itself was sent by Vicky Schmidt, a young girl with fair blue skin and a roadmap of black stitches. The subject of the question, Oz, a young man/person/amalgamation whose closet consisted of 23 versions of the same yellow cardigan, had not been seen in 3 days. He was missing over the weekend, but everybody assumed he was on vacation. But when he failed to arrive to the school the following Monday, suspicion and concern began to rise. Vicky leaned her hand on the school bathroom sink, her other hand holding her phone as she anxiously awaited any sort of reply. Two minutes later:

**Vera: "Nope, haven't seen him either. He's not a direct threat to me right now so I haven't sent anyone to kill him."**

Vicky rolled her eyes. Then an addition:

**Vera: "That is, if he can die."**

More people showed up on the screen as "Online."

**Liam: "Vera, I really don't think now is the time to be discussing the mortality of our friend. That being said, no he cannot. (At least to my knowledge.)"**

**Brian: "liam what the fuck"**

**Brian: "also no idk where he is"**

**Amira: "my guess is that hes at his house? maybe we should check there"**

**Liam: "Great idea! And where is that exactly?"**

**Polly: "liam shut up"**

**Scott: "HEY DONT SAY THAT TO LIAM"**

Scott, like always, still did not know how to turn his caps lock off.

**Scott: "ALSO HOW DO YOU TURN CAPS LOCK OFF"**

**Calculester: "Friend Scott, you simply press the up button on the far left of the screen."**

**Zoe: "i think i can get you guys there! i'm pretty sure it isn't far <3"**

**Vera: "Besides, I already got all of your addresses when you downloaded my app."**

**Damien: "WHAT THE FVK VERA TURN THAT SHT OFF!!!"**

**Vera: "No <3"**

**Vicky: "GUYS. we already have his address. zoe, you said you could take us there, right?"**

* * *

Oz's place of living was, in all aspects of the word, quaint. It was in a fairly expensive apartment complex, though it housed only one bedroom and bathroom. The front door was black, and the walls were covered, floor to ceiling, in Polaroids of him and his friends. The floor was carpeted and clean, the furniture and bed frame were likely straight out of a catalog from the 70's. The bed itself was messy, though the eye was likely drawn to its occupant.

There Oz sat on the bed, hugging his knees, white tears spilling down his cheeks. His body looked emaciated, nearly skeletal. His pet phobias had elongated and clung to the walls like overgrown vines of pure tar. He looked up quickly, and scooted back into the corner.

"Please, don't look at me. Go away." His voice was small. He was even using his mouth this time, rather than telepathy.

It was understandable why he was startled. Nearly every person in the world that he cared about were standing in or behind his doorway. They let themselves in. 

"Hey, Oz, have you had anything to eat?" Vicky said, careful not to touch him, lest he get even more scared.

"I don't want to."

Vera sighed. "Oz, you have to eat _some_ thing. I'm sure my sister or Damien can whip something up for you. What do you want, a croissant?" Damien blushed.

"It's not that simple."

Liam had his "gotcha" face on. "Ah, you need a body, huh? That's completely simple! There's a human settlement not too far from here, I'm sure that they won't notice--"

"NO!" Oz yelled. He immediately covered his mouth.

"I mean, no, please. Please don't kill anyone for me. Besides, that's not how it works."

"Then how _does_ it work?"

Oz took in a deep inhale.

"Fear. I feed on people's fear. It does... _hurt_ whoever I feed on, but no blood is spilled. No _real_ blood, anyway. That's why I was gone. There's so many people at school I care about too much to hurt, and I don't want to run the risk of you not trusting me anymore."

Scott looked deeply offended. "Oz! I always trust you, no matter what! We all trust you, right guys?"

There were some mixed reactions to that question, but the majority responded "yes."

"Okay everybody, get scared so that Oz has some tasty fear!"

Oz chuckled softly. "Scott, I appreciate the effort but that isn't how it works either. I make you see things, your greatest fears. The emotional response is how I feed. But nobody should go through it. And I mean nobody. So yes, that includes Leonard."

Everyone groaned.

"Well," said Miranda, hands on her hips. "Whatever you throw at us, we can take! It can't be worse than the horrors my bloodline has been through. All those airpeople..."

"Same here," said Damien. "Torture is actually one of my biggest turn ons though, so I don't know if I'll be any help."

"A-are you sure?" Oz asked.

The group confirmed.

"A-alright. Just remember..."

Oz stood up, and moved to the center of the wall. His lithe frame slowly started to float off the floor. An inky tendril shot out, nearly hitting some heads, and slammed the door shut, covering it, and with the addition of more tendrils, the entire span of the walls. The frozen, cheery faces of his friends were soon covered with void. The window was covered, leaving the only light sources Amira's firey hair, Polly's glowing body, and Oz's eyes, which were quickly becoming akin to vaguely circular scribbles, the lines crashing into each other like waves. His limbs stretched out, the joints growing sharper than a bee's stinger. He fully opened his mouth, uncovering row upon row of razor-sharp teeth. Then, a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once:

**"T H҉ ̢I̶ S ̴ ͞I ͡S ҉ ͏W H̴ A T͝ ̧ Y O̴ ͟U̢ ̨ W̧ A͢ ̢N T̸ E D."**

Then everything went dark.


	2. Aquaphobia

Aquaphobia, _noun._ An irrational fear of drowning, being stranded in a body of water, or simply water itself.

* * *

Oz's words echoed in Amira's mind. _"This is what you wanted."_ To be completely honest, it sounded like a threat. Oz didn't really make threats, nor was he himself threatening in any way.

At least until now.

"Alright, Oz, what've you got?" she called out into nothingness.

Hmm. Okay, so a big black void. She clearly wasn't in the apartment anymore, because no matter how far she was walking, she never hit a wall. She scoffed, thinking this was another prank. "Is this it?" she said. No reply.

Then he felt a drop of something on her arm, giving her goosebumps. She looked up. Still nothing.

"Okay, I'll give you that, that startled me. Is that enough?"

...

"Oz?"

Suddenly, an invisible force grabbed both her wrists and pulled her into the air. 

"Hey! Let me go!"

Her cries fell on either deaf or nonexistent ears, for her body was pulled forward to an unknowable location. A speck of light in the distance was all that could be seen, and it was getting closer. She squinted, then gasped. She struggled even harder, but she would not let go. 

She arrived and was stopped in the center of a swimming pool.

Her mother always warned her of water. That if her fire ever went out she would be immensely weak. And without a spark to reignite it, she would eventually die. Her heart rate was racing now. Her toes barely broke the surface tension. Her breathing was labored.

"Okay, you got me, I'm scared, now can you please feed off me and let me go?!"

No reply.

The force lowered her ever so slightly, that now only her soles was above water.

She had gotten curious one day. She went to the library and looked up pictures of what her people looked like without their fire. The sight replaced her stomach with a heavy pit. She could not go another thirty seconds before she had to excuse herself to the bathroom. She could still taste bile in her mouth hours later.

Now the entirety of both feet were submerged.

She struggled, and that was a mistake because the force suddenly seemed to let go ever so slightly, and as her body dropped by an inch, her heart dropped a mile.

Slowly but surely she was lowered, and soon only her neck was above water. There seemed to be no floor in the pool. A drop of water hit her head. It felt like a pinprick. By now, she was yelling.

"PLEASE, OZ! I WANT OUT! LET ME GO!"

...

She was going to die.


	3. Phoniaphobia

Phoniaphobia, _noun._ The irrational fear of being a killer.

* * *

Brian blinked. Oz was back to normal. Sure, he still looked like a skeleton, but at least he was alive. He looked around. The others must have left. Huh.

"Well, that was weird. Oz, are you good now--?"

He turned back to Oz, who looked terrified.

"Woah, buddy, you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." He laughed a little, thinking of Polly. She spooks everybody.

Oz's voice shook. "B-Brian?"

"Uh huh."

A tear rolled down his black face. _"What the fuck have you done?"_

Oz rarely swore. Brian moved to put his hands in his pockets. "Oz, what the hell are you talk--" He felt the soft fabric of his jacket pockets interact with something wet on his hands. He looked down.

His hands were coated in a shiny, red substance.

"No no no no no no no no no..."

He licked his lips. He tasted copper.

"No no please god no."

He had been doing fine. He had been going to the morgue, every single day suppressing his animalistic urges. But it seemed that now he could not control himself. He started to cry. He looked down trying to figure out what poor soul he had stolen. He turned the body over and screamed.

Though the scalp was ripped off, though the skull was broken in, though the brain was missing except for a few pieces of grey matter scattered both in the cavity and the carpet, and though the light in the eyes was absent, it was still the face of one Scott Howl.

Sweet, innocent Scott. Scott who had never taken a life, who never hurt anybody on purpose, who only ever got mad at inanimate objects, who everybody in the school adored. The cerulean eyes now frozen in horror, whose final sight was one of his best friends, one of the people he could trust with any secret in the world, reduced to a feral animal with one target in sight. His trademark smile left hanging open, whose final words were likely ones of confusion and terror, for why would a friend kill him? 

Brian looked back up at Oz. "I can explain--"

Oz shut him up. "No. Get away from me."

Brian did not move. 

"I said get the FUCK AWAY FROM ME." 

Brian stumbled back, unfamiliar with this side of his friend, who stormed out.

Oh god, what would his parents think?


	4. Athazagoraphobia

Athazagoraphobia, _noun._ The fear of being forgotten, ignored, or replaced.

* * *

Vicky snapped her eyes open. Oh, thank Dad. It was a nightmare. Why would Oz do something like that. She didn't know that he could be so... _terrifying._ But at least it was only in her mind. At least it wasn't real. Maybe she should talk to him at school today. Figure out if it was a premonition or something. It was entirely possible that he could. She'd really seen only glimpses of his powers, since he would always give a vaguely world-threatening response to any display requests. Though she did catch him unhinge his jaw while bees poured out one time. Scared the shit out of Damien.

But anyway, waking up. Yep. Right. She pushed her body up, leaning her weight on her arms--

\--And hit her head on a piece of glass.

Rubbing her forehead, she inspected it. She was in a glass cage. In her father's laboratory. 

"Dad?" She yelled out. "What the hell?! I told you tell me when you wanted to experiment on me more!" 

Her father walked in snapping the latex of his gloves. Ugh, she hated that sound.

"Hey, Dad! Did you hear me?" A small pea of anxiety began to linger in her stomach.

"Yes, honey, I did." But his tone was very dismissive, the lips surrounding his salt-and-pepper beard barely moving.

She looked over to the other table, the one her father was working on. There was a body, female. She was, Vicky had to admit, pretty much flawless. Barely a blemish on her skin. Her father reached over and pulled the comically large switch he loved to pull.

Lightning struck. Wires came to life.

The girl in the copper tub began to move.

Vicky looked closer at her.

It almost looked exactly like her, but with a few changes. Or, I guess, corrections.

For one, her skin wasn't blue. It was just a perfectly normal peach. There were no stitches running across her body, barely even any scars. No neck bolts, either. Her hair had no curls, and was the same light color as her skin. She was everything that Vicky wasn't, and could never be. 

_She's beautiful,_ Vicky thought with disgust.

But then, her father took her hand, and the perfect girl stands up no problem, not even needing two months of physical therapy.

And then, they both left.

Without Vicky.

"Hey! Dad! Lemme out!" she cried. Why had her father done this? They were perfectly happy, just the two of them. Why did he feel she needed a sister?

Unless...

Unless she wasn't her sister.

Unless she was his daughter.

His _only_ daughter.

Her fists were banging on the glass, blood spilling from her knuckles, yet the glass had barely a scratch. And so, the imperfect daughter was left behind.


	5. Autophobia

Autophobia, _noun._ The irrational fear of isolation.

* * *

When she woke up, Zoe was in the ritual chamber again. Her cultists must've brought her to the altar while she was sleeping again. She needed to really enforce the whole "only worship me when I'm conscious" rule. They never did anything to harm her, quite the opposite. Every time this happened she needed to rid herself of the necklace of eyes and carefully step around the piles upon piles of severed genitalia. They realized they could just give her VIP con passes, right?

Anyway, she called out to them.

"Hey guys? You need me to clean this stuff up?" She knew that they would do it for her, but it's rude not to offer. At least, they usually did. She waited, but nobody came.

She sighed, secreted a protective substance over her hands, and got to cleanup work. It was actually kind of nice, doing things for herself. If only Miranda could understand that. She washed her hands and left the room. 

She looked around, and the constant swarm of hooded figures seemed to have disappeared. There wasn't a soul in sight besides herself (though even that was debatable). Maybe they were all collecting ritual ingredients, or maybe they finally took her advice and went on vacation. 

Or maybe not.

Her home realm was empty, so she left for Earth. When the portal opened, she gasped and stumbled back. The portal shut, but the image was burned into every single one of her eyes. She shook herself, praying that it wasn't real. It couldn't be. She was here, she was alive, she was in her preferred form. What she saw was impossible, because everything was reset. That was how she was able to be here. That timeline never existed, right?

The darkest timeline was erased. It had to be.

She reopened the portal, stepped through, and nearly hit herself for being so naive.

Everything was gone. Buildings had turned to rubble, the sky was a terrifying, fiery orange, the waters, streets, hills were flooded with blood. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ground, ten feet wide and hundreds of miles deep. She could see the moon, it was split in half, and the sun was so, so close. Her skin nearly burned from it. Under her foot was a sickening crunch. She looked. It was somebody's skull. But Zoe was Zoe, so none of this could have happened, right? She had to know. She knew where the damning evidence was. She mustered her strength and teleported. 

Before her was a horrible skeleton in somebody's signature red and white letterman jacket. The extended tailbone gave it away. Zoe stepped back in disbelief. How could this have happened? How could her followers not have told her that they were going to do this. She never wanted to hurt anybody. She needed to know for sure. She teleported again, looked down, and screamed at the skeleton before her, the extended canines and fraying bowtie. It had written something in the dirt with its finger, the only thing about this world that wasn't fading away. The only thing that seemed to be permanent.

**_"THIS IS THE DARKEST TIMELINE."_ **

Zoe screamed, and she did not stop.


End file.
